Literacy Now

photo: Andrea Cipriani Mecchi

About 25 years ago, on a cold January day not too different from today, I handed my completed Tragedy Paper to my high school senior English teacher Mr. Arthur Naething. It was the longest, hardest research paper I had ever completed—we had all been dreading and fretting over it since September. And now it was done—twenty-nine typed pages, plus a seven-page bibliography.

As the paper moved from my young, inexperienced hand to his sturdy, slightly wrinkled one, I wondered, had I defined a literary tragedy properly? Did I use enough examples of Aristotle and Shakespeare? Was my use of secondary sources strong enough? Had I made my point, and backed it up, when I declared that I did not believe tragedy could still be written in our time?

Then the paper was gone, whisked away with the rest of them, and I had to wait weeks to learn my fate.

I knew even then that this paper was slightly different from others I had written. After all, how often was I actually excited to turn in a big school assignment? When, before, had I not minded sitting down with books and notes and ideas, trying to make sense of it all? With all my other assignments, it had been a relief to turn them in and be rid of them. With this one, though, I found myself thinking about it, and wondering what Mr. Naething might think of this or that choice I made. Still, did I even begin to know how much—dare I use the word? —magnitude the paper was going to hold for me?

I definitely did not.

There was a lot going on for me that year. It was my second year at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York. I traveled by bus every morning to get there, across Westchester County from my home in Mamaroneck. Nothing terrible had happened to force my parents to make the change away from the school closer to my house, but it did seem like the last chance for something—the last chance to enjoy high school, the last chance to move from being a mediocre student to a better one, the last chance to figure out that learning could be more than just something I had to do. In the same way that Tim Macbeth, one of the main characters in my new young adult novel, THE TRAGEDY PAPER, finds himself at the Irving School grasping for that last opportunity to squeeze the joy out of high school, I found myself on that quad and in those classrooms in a similar situation.

By the time my senior year and my Tragedy Paper rolled around, I was in the groove. I had friends I loved, I was doing better than ever in school, and, for the first time, I felt like I belonged someplace that I could already see was special. Like the characters in my book, I walked under a stone sign that read, “Enter Here To Be and Find A Friend,” and I was dismissed from my English class each day with the words, “Go forth and spread beauty and light.”

I remember the day the papers were returned to us. They were spread out on a wooden table in the school’s main office. We ran to find our masterpieces. I had to thumb through the pages along with everyone else looking for my grade. And there, written in pencil, was a capital A with the sentence, “Your argument is valid and convincing.”

I had done it, and the strangest part to me at the time was how much I cared! I had completed the assignment and done the best job I could do. I had a huge sense of accomplishment, but no idea that it was really just the beginning of how often that paper would creep back into my thoughts.

Because of it, I was never afraid of a research paper in college; when I studied tragedy in a playwriting class, I was more prepared than anyone else. With some distance, I credit the paper for leading me to my first career as a journalist. That excited feeling I had for the first time when I sat on my yellow-carpeted bedroom floor as a teenager surrounded by books analyzing tragedy, I continued to have every time I returned to the newsroom with a full reporter’s notebook and a blank computer screen. And even now, as I sit down to write fiction.

When my agent suggested I try to write a young adult novel, I loved the idea. As the story formed in my head, the world of the Irving School unfolded and Mr. Naething’s words came back to me. And then there is was—that amazing Tragedy Paper that was going to take Tim and Duncan through their senior years, the Tragedy Paper that had gotten me through mine and so far beyond. It was like a magic gift that surfaced so many years later after having burrowed into my subconscious.

The words came tumbling out—magnitude first, of course, and then hubris, order and chaos, reversal of fortune—all the things that make a story great. It took more than a quarter of a century to finally see the full value of that assignment.

I recently wrote another blog post in which I talked about trying to worry less as an adult, something I was able to do as a teen. But my husband joked last night that I should have warned my teen self to take great care with my Tragedy Paper, knowing now how important it was, and continues to be, to my life. Echoing Tim’s words to Duncan at the beginning of my book, that paper would become the “meat” of my future novel.

Elizabeth LaBan worked at NBC News, taught at a community college, and has written for several magazines and newspapers. THE TRAGEDY PAPER is her first young adult novel. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.



Putting Yourself in Your Character’s Shoes (Sneakers, Ballet Flats or Boots!)

In Other Words: On a Writer's Journey, Finding a Fellow Traveler

Growing up the only daughter in a patriarchal, male-dominated home, I am, perhaps, too sensitive about gender inequities. I was told that my daily dishwashing and ironing chores were less difficult than my brothers’ infrequent lawn-mowing task, but I never believed it. Neither did my brothers, who were too sly to speak on my behalf and disturb the happy imbalance of credit for labor. Unfairness? What unfairness? I don’t see any unfairness?

So it never surprises me when work by men is automatically assumed to be more important, difficult, and the male perspective on the world is the more valuable perspective. Last year, women illustrators spoke up about the complete shut-out of women from children’s books most precious award, the Caldecott, and book critic Janice Harayda wrote, “Consciously or not, the Caldecott judges may be favoring visual images of boys as much as male artists.”

LadyBusiness compiled stats of major award winners for children’s and young adult books since 2000 and found that 49% featured male protagonists, 36% featured female protagonists, and 15% featured both male and female protagonists. Contributor Ana wrote, “If stories by and about boys and men are so rare in the world of YA and yet show up in the proportion we've seen above in lists of award winners, then we're disproportionately privileging these stories when we select the best YA has to offer. In a world where anything masculine is still valued to a much greater extent than anything feminine, this possibility worries me.”

I was not surprised when VIDA (Women in Literary Arts) and the Women’s Media Center compiled stats and charts to prove that respected publications disproportionately assign male contributors to review books and interview authors, who also happen to be male in disproportionate numbers.

NEW YORK TIMES best-selling authors Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult have called out publications like the NYT BOOK REVIEW for the lavish coverage given to certain men authors, while ignoring women authors of equal caliber. (Read Weiner’s 2012 update on the topic.) Weiner and Picoult, who were not advocating for themselves, noted that critical recognition leads to financial rewards: the slight is both to the ego and the bank account. The general response from men was that Weiner and Picoult should stop “bellyaching” about gender disparities since: (1) they write commercial fiction, (2) they’re successful, (3) men are far more serious about literature, and (4) men have given worthy women authors day passes to the club. Some publications presented chicken-before-egg analyses: the majority of novels published by major houses are written by men—probably because they’re far more serious—so it follows that most reviews would be about men’s books.

Unfairness? What unfairness? I don’t see any unfairness.

I do not begrudge men their preferences for all things dude-ish. Let men be men in their myriad glory. Let them be way serious and be taken seriously as they write about, I don’t know, educated middle-class men who are consumed by an ineffable mood of existential angst from cosseted and racially-specific perspectives. However, I am at a loss to understand why men writing about family life are judged to be serious writers, while women writing about the same topics are automatically “small” writers.

One could get angry and rail about the disingenuous claims by men that the disparity of critical recognition is due to women’s lack of skill and also how very yucky girls are. I love a good tirade and have a special fondness for spitting-mad outrage and bickering, particularly when it includes irrelevant personal swipes. (Is it really a coincidence that kerfuffle rhymes with truffle?) As much fun as that is, fuming about the literary glass ceiling distracts us from one of the marvels happening now in the world of books.

Because girls and women are not powerless victims of some male-dominated literary conspiracy which takes place within the offices of a few publications and journals. Women buy and read many more books than men. If you search outside the major publishing houses, women also publish more books than men.

While journals drone on about the decline of boys reading, I see very little celebration of the fantastic numbers of girls and young women reading, book blogging, and writing their own novels. Teen girls eagerly adopted social media to connect with other readers, reviewers, authors, and publishers. They’re active on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter.

They don’t limit their book love to online participation. This summer, I visited libraries like the Warren-Newport Public Library in Gurnee, IL, and saw terrific annexes set up just for teens. I was astounded by the Must Be 14 group of teen reviewers who can fill a meeting room at Book Passages in Corte Madera, CA, and discuss fiction for hours. Bookstores like Books Inc. in San Francisco regularly have standing-room-only crowds of teenage girls and young women for author talks in their Not Your Mother’s Book Club series. They travel to American Library Association conferences and book festivals and talk to publishers and authors.

These girls are smart, informed, creative, and passionate about books. It’s not uncommon for them to devour dozens of novels every month. They don’t blink when they commit to the 100 Book Challenge. They can catapult a novel to best-seller status and they don’t especially care if a man or woman wrote it. Neither do they care whether it’s received critical acclaim, although they’re happy to nominate books for their own awards. While other fiction categories struggle to hold on, Young Adult books have steadily increased in sales, and some of Hollywood’s biggest hits have been movies based on girl-centric stories, like THE HUNGER GAMES and the Twilight series.

photo: ucumari via photopin cc

These teen girls grew up witnessing the massive success of women authors like J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer, and they have seen women working outside traditional routes to become successful. E.L. James, whose erotic fanfic was so popular that she was able to sell it to a small print-on-demand and ebook publisher; since then 50 SHADES OF GREY has sold over 65 million copies. Amanda Hocking, now published by St. Martin’s, became a millionaire while still in her 20s with her self-published My Blood Approves books and the Trylle Trilogy.

I’m not interested in debating the quality of these books, because that’s not the point. The point is that young women are having a different experience of women’s place in the book world—as victorious, loved, and influential. The point is that I had to wash dishes, but as the only girl I got my own bedroom, where I could read novels to my heart’s content.

Girls are the gorillas in the library. Beat your chests and roar.

Marta Acosta is the author of DARK COMPANION (2012) , a Young Adult gothic, the award-winning Casa Dracula series, and NANCY'S THEORY OF STYLE. She's a graduate of Stanford University and was a frequent contributor of commentary and features to the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. Her next novel, a comedy, will be released in June 2013.

5 Questions With... Marta Acosta (DARK COMPANION)

ALA: Caldecott Medal Homepage

As children we often have aspirations for what we want to be when we grow up. For me, I knew I was going to be an actress and live in New York City—I was born with greasepaint running through my veins. Then, as I got older (16 to be exact), I told my mom I was going to medical school and find the cure for cancer. Many years of formal education later, and none of them spent studying drama or medicine, I am finally doing what I was meant to do—teach.

I had many careers prior to becoming a classroom teacher. I worked in Hollywood for a major production company, rubbing shoulders with celebrities. Life was good but something was missing. I moved to San Diego where I met my husband, got married, and studied for my paralegal certificate at the University of San Diego.

The day after graduation we moved to Seattle. For twelve years I worked as a paralegal in major law firms. I enjoyed the work and the people I worked with but still, something was missing. At the end of the day, a big question hovered over my head: what had I truly accomplished in the big scheme of the world? Had I provided the escape of entertainment from the worries of the world? No. Had I provided a cure for anything more serious than the common cold? Not even close.

It was time for me to move on and actually do something. This required that I figure out what I truly needed in my next career.

First and foremost was passion. A close second was meaning. Lastly, but equally important as the first two, was flexibility. I have my husband to credit for the brilliant idea that I consider being a teacher. That profession had never crossed my mind, but once it did, it seemed so obvious. Immediately I thought of my paternal grandmother, who taught in a one-room classroom in the middle of the farm lands of North Dakota. My mind was set and as with everything I do, once I set my mind to it, I run with it!

I started by conducting informational interviews and researching programs at the universities in Seattle. Eventually, I made the plunge. I chose Seattle Pacific University for their rigorous curriculum, certification, small student to professor ratios, and the caliber of their professors.

Five semesters later, I finished the baccalaureate program and was ready to begin my master’s degree in language and literacy with an emphasis as a teacher of reading. I had been discouraged by most of my professors from going on to graduate school. I was told I would price myself out of a job, it would be a waste of my time and money if I planned to only teach elementary students, and the debt would far outweigh the paychecks. My response was, “Why shouldn’t young students have the benefit of a teacher with a higher degree and specialty?” After all, one of the items on my career changing list was “meaning.” I chose to attend Wheelock College in Boston for their intense literacy program, credibility in the teaching field, and their dedication to children, not to mention the opportunity to live on the East Coast for a year.

The process of interviewing for a teaching job began well before I completed my master’s degree. I interviewed in Seattle during spring break and via conference calls. By the time I graduated, I had a job teaching fourth grade.

I worked for five years in a socioeconomically challenged school district. The majority of the students were on free or reduced breakfasts and lunches, spoke English as their second language, and were well behind the state standards in all subjects. Yes, I had my work cut out for me. But I also had excellent training in similar demographics. I felt prepared and ready to put all my hard work to work for my students.

By now I felt I had accomplished the first two items on my new career list—passion and meaning. But one was not quite at 100%—flexibility. As a writer working towards getting my novels and picture books published, I needed more than summers to write. My evenings and weekends were still devoted to my classroom teachings. It was time to make another plunge off another high dive.

I decided to retire from teaching in the classroom, and started my own business of tutoring from my home office.

Once again, I ran with my new career direction. I had all my teaching resources gathered over the years. I also had an awesome classroom library of books that I accumulated over the years. And my practicum in graduate school gave me the resources I needed to perform my own student assessments in literacy. I had everything at my fingertips that I would need to teach—except for the students.

I designed my brochure and started a marketing and advertising blitz. Most elementary schools allowed me to leave brochures in the front office. The local independent bookstores and coffee shops have community boards that are perfect for free advertising, and I was able to advertise on our local township website as well.

I also turned to my teacher colleagues for student referrals, which is how I acquired my first student. He was a fifth grader struggling with the writing process. I worked with him for two years—first on writing, then on reading and math and other special projects. It was very rewarding to be a part of his academic progress. Recently, I received an email from his mother letting me know how much she appreciated my work with her son. He is now a freshman in high school and doing quite well.

Over time one student led to another and another and another. Most of my referrals have been from word of mouth and I have been able to maintain a workload that allows me to have all three items on my list checked-off: Passion. Meaning. Flexibility.

Three years have passed since I made the plunge to go out on my own and I have loved every minute. My students have ranged in age from Pre-K to middle school, both boys and girls. Sometimes they come to me with a specific goal in mind and other times I am their weekly academic booster, supplementing the classroom teachings, filling the gaps made ever wider by budget cuts and changes in the traditional home dynamic.

However, working from home as a private tutor is not for everyone. To be successful you need to be very organized, disciplined with your time, and be able to take the lean times along with the flush times. Not to mention that marketing your services is a constant endeavor.

But if you think you have what it takes or would at least like to give it a try, here are some tips:

• Contact your homeowners or renters insurance to confirm you have the coverage necessary to have clients in and out of your home. You will probably want to increase your liability coverage.
• Have a professional brochure designed that outlines your education, expertise, teaching philosophy, and lists memberships in pertinent organizations (such as International Reading Association or NCTE). In your absence, your brochure will be your one and only marketing tool that will make or break the first impression upon prospective clients.
• Purchase professional business cards. Don’t let the age of your students direct the look of your cards. Avoid a card that is laden with cutesy graphics, that’s too glossy, or that’s printed on flimsy stock. Remember, your audience first and foremost is parents.
• I highly recommend you have formal policies and “house rules” written up that you give to each family upon initial communication about tutoring. Having these in place will help avoid awkward situations later regarding public and private parameters of your home, payment policies, and scheduling, just to name a few.

photo: donovanbeeson via photopin cc

• Create a spreadsheet on Excel or similar program to track payments and sessions by students.
• Prepare file folders for each student that includes the assessments you prepare, lesson notes, and student work.
• Purchase or create lending library cards. I am very old-school about books. I love the actual books and I love to share them with my students. I use library cards to list each book a student borrows, the date they borrow the book and the date it is returned. I also supplement my inventory with books from the public library. (Have a policy about charging for books borrowed if they are not returned within a designated number of days or lost).
• Research the various online teaching resources for additional materials and resources to have at your fingertips. I use the practice pages, booklets, and online manipulatives depending on the student. I have chosen to use ReadWriteThink.org, Scholastic.com, edHelper.com, and Sadlier-Oxford.com. (Some sites require a nominal annual fee.)
• Have a professional website, a professional Facebook page, and a Twitter account that you actually use on a regular basis. I stress the professionalism of all of these social media platforms. One picture says a thousand words and you don’t want those words to portray you in a negative light.

My journey to working as a private tutor was long and by no means direct. Although I have not worked as a professional actress, lived in New York City, or found the cure for cancer, what I have done with my career has and continues to be very rewarding. I have found my passion, with meaning and flexibility.

Going out on one’s own is not for everyone. It takes guts and a certain amount of financial security already in place. However, if you are even slightly considering the big dive I highly encourage you to start with some informational interviews and see where they lead you.

Happy Teaching!

Kathleen A. Hunter, MS is a literacy tutor and aspiring children's book author. You can visit her online at www.KathleenHunterWrites.com.



Using Music to Inspire Young Writers

Teaching Tips: Bringing Children, Dogs, and Books Together

My first job in teaching began in January, after the previous teacher abruptly decided—sometime in mid-December—that the time was right to retire. After my first week on the job, I understood, deep in my heart, why retirement had seemed so attractive for my predecessor.

My classes were a blend of chaos, flagrant insubordination, and pure noise. The warning from my favorite college professor had been proven true—“Who controls the sound in a classroom controls the class.” My classes were not being run by me, but by a small set of loud, rude, squirrely, out-of-control adolescents.

Desperate to establish at least some semblance of control, I was ready to resort to punishment, threats, pay-offs, anything. However, I had nothing to leverage. So, I rummaged around in the teacher storage room and discovered two old “listening stations” that had been discarded years earlier by the Spanish department. Each listening station had 10 sets of headphones linked together by a single cord. I brought my music player to school, plugged in the two listening stations, and instantly was able to pipe in music to all twenty sets of headphones simultaneously.

The next week, I established ground rules for what I hoped would be a successful inducement: Students who did their work in class and who were not marked down for egregious misconduct could listen to music at the listening stations for the last twenty minutes of class on Fridays. To my great surprise, the ruse actually worked. The lure of listening to music, free from my teacherly witticisms for a brief period of time, was sufficiently compelling to change students’ patterns of behavior. The noise level in my classroom declined and students began to tone down the frequency and intensity of disruptions.

photo: bjdawes via photopin cc

Unfortunately, the transformation in my classes had little to do with better teaching; instead, the improvement was the result of a brazen struggle for control over sound. My experience made me think Friedrich Nietzsche was right when he noted that “without music, life would be a mistake.”

After doing a little research, I discovered a plethora of scientific studies on the effects of sound on the brain. One group of medical researchers seemed particularly interested in using music to help speed healing after a traumatic illness or surgery. Indeed, music appears to promote recovery after a stroke (Särkämö et al., 2010), to reduce time spent in rehabilitation (Karagozoglu & Yilmaz, 2012), and to aid in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia and severe personality disorders (Hannibal, Pedersen, Hestbaek, Sorensen, & Munk-Jorgensen, 2012).

According to Julian Treasure, who has several talks on the auditory sense available on the TED website (this one is my favorite), there are four possible outcomes of sound:

Physiological—Sound can affect breathing, brain waves, and the heart. For example, the piercing sound of an ambulance’s siren instantly increases the heart rate and alters brain waves.

Psychological—Sound can affect attitude and the sense of well-being. The sound of a bird chirping may offer an aura of security and serenity, while the sound of a rattlesnake’s rattle can provoke fear.

Cognitive—Sound can enhance or undermine the quality of your thinking. According to Treasure, productivity in a noisy, open office can be as much as 66% lower than in a quiet environment.

Behavioral—Sound can influence behavior. For example, the sound of a concrete drill can make people want to run away, while the sound of ocean waves might make people want to relax and stick around.

The literature on sound has major implications for teaching. For example, if noisy, disorganized environments really do decrease efficiency dramatically, then the effectiveness of my lessons in those first few days of January was probably nil. In retrospect, the unruly and boorish behavior of a few students in my poorly supervised classroom likely caused panic and dread among other students who might have actually wanted to learn something. The anarchy must have been almost as much of a living hell for them as me.

On the bright side, with the right tools and appropriate know-how, sound’s power can be harnessed to achieve dramatic, positive results. Using a music- and singing-based program to teach reading, researcher Susan Homan increased the reading skills of struggling readers (including many incarcerated youth with very low reading levels) by 27 to 214%.

Similarly, the potential for having reluctant writers learn to write more effectively by listening and speaking is quite exciting. By using voice-to-text technologies, students might be able to avoid short-circuits that sometimes occur between the formulation of an idea and getting down words on paper.

I have been trying out some new voice-to-text strategies with struggling adolescent writers over the past year. I’ll be presenting preliminary results this April, at the International Reading Association’s 58th Annual Convention, in a session titled “Learning by Ear: Sound Principles for Teaching Reading and Writing.” (Susan Homan is one of my co-presenters.)

References

Hannibal, N., Pedersen, I., Hestbaek, T., Sorensen, T., & Munk-Jorgensen, P. (2012). Schizophrenia and personality disorder patients’ adherence to music therapy. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry 66(6), 376-379.

Karagozoglu, F., & Yilmaz, F. (2012). Effects of music therapy and guided visual imagery on chemotherapy-induced anxiety and nausea-vomiting. Journal of Clinical Nursing 22, 39-50.

Särkämö, T., Pihko, E., Laitinen, S., Forsblom, A., Soinila, S., Mikkonen, M., Autti, T., Silvennoinen, H., Erkkilä, J., Laine, M., Peretz, I., Hietanen, M. & Tervaniemi, M. (2010). Music and speech listening enhance the recovery of early sensory processing after stroke. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 22, 2716-2727.

Lawrence Baines is a professor of English Education at The University of Oklahoma who has worked in over 350 schools. Baines is obsessed with the peculiar art of teaching writing to adolescents, and co-wrote the book GOING BOHEMIAN: HOW TO TEACH WRITING LIKE YOU MEAN IT (published by IRA) with his buddy, Anthony Kunkel. Visit him on the web at www.lawrencebaines.com.



Lawrence Baines on Romancing the Topic

Study: Musical training tones the mind, enhances learning

Father Time has turned a page in his calendar again and the New Year is upon us. I, for one, am excited—especially because we have inched that much closer to the adoption of the Common Core State Standards.

I spent a lot of time during my break thinking about the new standards. Re-reading them, listening to and contemplating tons of commentary, unpacking and then re-mixing ways to approach them (and so on), and the more I dive in—the more I reflect, the more I internalize and absorb them—the bigger fan I am of adopting Common Core.

Perhaps I could list 20 reasons why this is the case if I truly wanted to make the effort, but instead I’ll focus right now on a lean and pertinent two.

#1: The death knell for weak multiple choice tests has been sounded. Hooray, I say! The fact is, I’m not really sure who amongst us isn’t happy to hear this chime begin to ring throughout the national educational kingdom.

As so many of us know, No Child Left Behind brought us a plague of poor assessments (perhaps the peak of it can be found here), and over the past decade standardized tests have become the unfortunate tail that wags the schoolhouse dog. Principals have been fired over poor test results, teachers have been publicly ostracized—and terminated—over poor test results, and the underground resistance which has vociferously been shouting from the rooftops, “Your tests stink as student performance measures and are actually doing more harm than good to our schools” is about to see the notch of victory be etched into their collective belts.

photo: albertogp123 via photopin cc

Common Core is too complex, too rich, too demanding and too forward-thinking to be captured in a mere A, B, C, or D form of student assessment. In fact, our nation is seeing a bold new series of groups (namely, this one and this one) build better student evaluation mousetraps. Some of the ideas I’ve seen kicked around have me smiling at the notion that, “Hey, this ain’t your momma’s rote memory, lower-level Bloom’s type of test anymore.”

The coming assessments are going to be adaptive, multi-layered, trans-media, technology-based (of course) and far more insightful in terms of actually getting to see what a student really knows than anything we’ve poured billions into over the past ten years.

And yes, they are going to be much more challenging, as well. Which leads me to my second cause for celebration.

#2: The overall academic challenges our students will face will be much more demanding, but also more relevant as well.

The Common Core will raise the bar, and though there are skeptics—some of whom make some credible points —on the whole, I believe that Common Core is an elevation.

• Common Core puts a premium on writing unlike any we’ve ever had before.
• Common Core puts a premium on re-reading and close reading, unlike anything we’ve ever had before.
• Common Core recognizes the interdependent relationship between reading and writing and places a premium on students being able to read well and then write (cogently) in response to what they have read… unlike anything we have ever had before.
• Common Core places a premium on all of the aforementioned occurring in an interdisciplinary capacity—across all disciplines, across all grade levels—unlike anything we’ve really seen before.

This is “life tools beyond the K–12 classroom” stuff. After all, as so much data shows, people who read well and write well attain a sense of success in America that transcends mere income.

Highly literate people:

• Vote more.
• Are incarcerated less.
• Play a more active role in the community.
• Live longer lives.
• And so on…

See, Common Core isn’t shying away from asking more of many, many American students than our classrooms have been traditionally asking of them. “Raising expectations” used to be an empty buzz phrase that admins would casually toss around at their cozy little district offices. With Common Core, expectations have actually been raised and for some folks, the actual sight of this is terrifying.

Being somewhat afraid is a good thing. In a way, American schools have become somewhat stale and those butterflies we’re all feeling in our bellies are a sign, to me, that BIG CHANGE is coming. I’m not alone in thinking that the United States has become too comfortable, too filled with a sense of self-entitlement, and this sense of national hubris could very much be the trigger which precedes a great fall.

Our schools can certainly be more demanding. Common Core plans to tackle this issue head on.

Ultimately, I guess I don’t really have a problem with higher expectations. However, I do have a problem with unrealistic expectations. If the right PD and the resources aren’t provided for the Common Core, and policymakers take a page out of the NCLB playbook and merely want to shame teachers with dubious data without actually making a genuine effort to help them improve their craft, then this column is going to have a different tenor a few years from now.

That’s a promise.

But as the old saying goes, “Don’t fall before you are pushed.” We haven’t not risen to new heights yet, so why pre-suppose that we are not capable of doing so?

Common Core, you hold the promise of a new tomorrow—and it’s the time of year when thinking about new tomorrows excites me.

[The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the International Reading Association or its Board of Directors.]

Alan Sitomer was named California's 2007 Teacher of the Year. In addition to being an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Alan is a nationally renowned speaker specializing in engaging reluctant readers who received the 2004 award for Classroom Excellence from the Southern California Teachers of English, the 2003 Teacher of the Year honor from California Literacy, the 2007 Educator of the Year award by Loyola Marymount University and the 2008 Innovative Educator of the Year from The Insight Education Group. He’s the author of six young adult novels, three children's picture books, two teacher methodology books, and a classroom curriculum series for secondary English Language Arts instruction called THE ALAN SITOMER BOOK JAM. A Fun Look at Our Serious Work appears quarterly on the Engage blog.